


And This Solitary Moment Makes Me Want To Come Back Home

by brittastyles (orphan_account)



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Future, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:37:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/brittastyles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt's in town for the holidays and he runs into an old acquaintance. But he's not as put together and he should be, and things don't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And This Solitary Moment Makes Me Want To Come Back Home

It’s freezing as he steps into the coffee shop. The heat of the store is a welcome contrast, and for a second Kurt embraces being back in Ohio for the holidays. He’s excited to see his family of course, but the small town he grew up remains unchanged, unwelcoming; it still suffocates him.  

 

After a trying encounter with the bored youth behind the register, Kurt takes his nonfat, no whip, faux dairy latte and sets himself up in a corner. He takes off his coat and scarf, setting them down gently in the empty chair beside him. He reads over the script he’s had in his bag for weeks now, the new project he’s set to start producing after the holidays. He scowls every time he finds a grammatical error, and if this were a drinking game he would have been drunk after the second page.

 

He’s been in the shop for nearly an hour when he hears a familiar voice. He struggles to place it at first, looking around the room with almost childlike curiosity. It’s when he looks directly opposite of him, all the way across the lobby, that he sees him.

 

Karofsky -- David, he mentally corrects himself, is sipping on an iced beverage that nearly overflows with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. He’s wearing a thin gray sweater, and Kurt is envious of his ability to not freeze to death. Kurt hasn’t seen him in almost a decade and he can’t help but feel guilty about that. He looks back down at the manuscript (it’s now almost completely marked with corrections) and ignores the voice in the back of his head that urges him to make contact with David.

 

***

 

In an act of clearly planned betrayal, his phone rings loudly ten minutes later. It’s his dad calling to tell him Finn and Rachel have arrived. Any reluctance he’s still harboring about being in town slowly dwindle when he hears the pure happiness in Burt’s voice.

A few minutes later he lets out an, “All right, see you soon, dad!” He’s smiling to himself, weighing the pros and cons of rewriting the entire play himself, when someone pulls up a chair next to him.

 

“I thought that was you.” David’s voice is quiet, unsure of itself, like he thinks Kurt won’t let him start a conversation.

His hair’s a little longer than Kurt remembers, the faintest shadow of facial hair accenting his features. Kurt smiles almost involuntarily, shooing away the feeling of culpability creeping into his chest. He silences the whispered thoughts of “you don’t deserve his attention.”

 

“David! Please, sit down.” He repositions his belongings on the table to make room for the other boy--the other man. Kurt’s mental database of David holds nothing recent, he knows absolutely nothing about the person currently sitting beside him.

 

“It’s been what? Ten years?” David’s smile reaches his eyes and Kurt relaxes a bit. He has no idea why he’s so nervous; he’s a fantastic actor, he can handle a reunion with an estranged friend.

Only as soon as he and David fall into easy conversation, he realizes they never really were friends.

 

David mentions something about a football scholarship to a private college where he majored in philosophy, Kurt smiles and nods as he recalls when he broke David’s trust by telling Blaine his darkest secret. David tells him an utterly hilarious story about law school where he and his boyfriend --a detail not unnoticed by Kurt -- spent a week accidentally going to upper division classes before they realized their mistake; Kurt has a flashback to the one hospital visit he made after David’s suicide attempt.

Kurt’s eyes can’t meet David’s anymore, it feels like his thoughts are transparent and clear to the two. David simply looks at his companion-- no anger, no sadness, no anything.

 

Kurt fills the silence. “I’m sorry David.” It feels too little, too late. It’s not enough. He takes a sip from his now cold latte and it does nothing to comfort him.

 

“I promised to visit. I offered you friendship. And i just.. didn’t.” He’s incapable of excusing his behavior, well aware that there’s nothing that could justify David’s forgiveness.

 

David reaches over and places his hand on Kurt’s shoulder. The two are closer in proximity now. It’s unexpected and new but not entirely unwelcome, so Kurt doesn’t move away.

 

“After my attempt, I changed schools. I got help.” David’s not nervous and it feels like a story he’s used to telling. “I had to help myself.”

Kurt knows it’s true, that even if he had kept in contact, David would have slipped away. He misses the hand on his shoulder as soon as David removes it.

“It’s kinda funny” and his tone is different now, more playful, and Kurt feels the tension begin to dissipate. “Sebastian and I became something like friends after the whole ordeal.”

 

And that--Kurt wasn’t expecting that. He hasn’t got many clear memories of Sebastian but the ones that pop up are anything but good. Kurt makes a face at David and the laugh that comes from the man fills him with warmth.

 

“Yeah, I know. But he was around. He never sugarcoated things but he never got too rough either.”

 

“At least he can say he did one good thing, then.” It comes out sharp, bitter, and Kurt’s really got to work on his brain-to-mouth filter.

 

David looks unfazed. “He convinced me it was good that you never called. Told me I needed to sort myself out and that trying to hide my feelings for you while working out my feelings about everything couldn’t end well.”

 

Kurt feels sick. He’s ruined his reconciliation with David (if you can call a chance encounter in a shitty Ohio coffee shop a “reconciliation”).

 

“He was probably right.” Kurt wonders when life reversed their roles, when he became the one with less life experience and David the one offering him wisdom and guidance.

 

“You were with Blaine. I was naive to think anything would have happened.”

 

Kurt lets out a laugh to dismiss David’s rejection of himself.

 

“Please. There’s no way I would have been good enough for you back then.” He’s not sure what he’s saying, but it doesn’t feel like a lie. He keeps going.

 

“I was self absorbed, head over heels infatuated with someone who ended up being horrible to me. I needed to learn. I’m not sure I’m good enough for your attention now.”

 

The shop is empty now, and Kurt’s been there for far too long. He’s been in Ohio too long, if he’s honest. It’s bringing back memories he’s worked hard at repressing. There’s a silence that looms over the table, both men unsure where to go from there. Kurt kicks himself for being mentally stuck at age 18, awkward around David.

 

“You’re not a bad person, Kurt. I don’t know why you think that.”

 

He is though. He’s making this meeting about himself with his self pity, he’s once again using dramatics as a defense mechanism, when he should just tell David he hasn’t stopped thinking about him for years.

 

But he’s not going to do that.

 

He doesn’t know if David’s in town in passing, if he lives here, doesn’t know what kind of law he practices or what his favorite song is. He thinks he maybe should have asked that before he let his self pity and pent up guilt get the best of this conversation.

Kurt knows they wouldn’t have worked in high school. The gaps in their maturity levels don’t seem to have changed though, and Kurt doesn’t want to risk ruining David’s well deserved success with his sour disposition. He gives David a smile.

 

 

He thinks if he made a move maybe David would accept, but it didn’t work ten years ago and it wouldn’t work now.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a friend but this doesn't really fill her prompt, so, sorry. Unbeta'd, any mistakes are my own. I haven't watched Glee in a while so excuse any continuity errors (but those never really concern Glee writers so maybe I shouldn't care either.)


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